How E-Signing Works

Gilded includes built-in electronic signatures for contracts and combined documents. Signatures are legally binding under the ESIGN Act and UETA, which means they hold the same legal weight as ink-on-paper signatures for wedding planning agreements.

Here is what your client experiences when they receive a document to sign, and what happens on your end.

What Your Client Sees

When your client clicks the link in their email, they land on a secure signing page. The process has four steps:

Step 1: Consent to E-Sign

Before viewing the document, your client is asked to consent to using electronic signatures. This is a legal requirement — they confirm they agree to sign electronically and that their e-signature is as valid as a handwritten one.

Step 2: Review the Document

Your client reads through the full document. The content is rendered as a formatted PDF with your branding — logo, colors, and fonts all match the brand preset you applied in the builder.

Step 3: Initial Key Sections

If you marked any sections as requiring initials (like cancellation policy or payment terms), your client must place their initials on each of those sections before proceeding. This confirms they have read and acknowledged each important clause.

The sections that need initials are clearly marked so your client knows where to stop and initial.

Step 4: Sign at the Bottom

At the end of the document, your client places their full electronic signature in the signature field. Once they sign, the document is finalized on their end.

Multiple Signatories

Where the couple are two people, both use the same link. Each identifies themselves by email when they open it, so Gilded knows whose signature it is recording. You countersign from your dashboard rather than from that link — see below. The document is not fully executed until every signatory has signed, yourself included.

You can track who has signed and who is still pending from the event detail page.

Signing as the Planner

You sign from within your Gilded dashboard, not from the client email link. Open the event and click Sign Agreement in the action panel (your dashboard also surfaces a Sign Now item for documents waiting on you). This opens a dedicated signing screen where you review the document and add your signature.

Between Signatures

When some signatories have signed but others have not, the document is in a partially signed state. Here is what to expect:

• Your client sees a "You've signed!" screen naming whoever is still outstanding — their partner if that person has not signed, otherwise you — and saying an email with a link to the signed agreement will follow. No download is offered there — before everyone signs, the only available copy is the unsigned agreement.
• Your event page shows a status like "Awaiting Your Signature" if the client has signed but you have not yet. Click Sign Agreement in the action panel to complete your part.
• The workflow does not advance until every signatory has signed. Payment requests and other next steps are not available until the document is fully executed.

If you are the last signatory, signing completes the document immediately and the workflow moves forward.

When Someone Won't Sign

If one member of the couple can't or won't sign, you're not stuck waiting:

• Waive a signature. Once the other couple member has signed, you can waive the missing signer from the event's documents card and the agreement completes without them. Waiving is final: once the agreement is fully signed, a waived partner can't be added to it, so if they may still want to sign, wait before waiving.
• Resend the signing link. If a signer simply lost the email, use Resend signing link to send it again — this does not reset anyone's existing signature.

After Everyone Signs

Once all parties have signed, the document status moves to Signed and the event workflow advances automatically. At this point:

• A fully executed PDF is generated and stored securely

Viewing the Signed Document

When you open a fully executed document in Gilded, it renders in-app as a formatted page — not just an embedded PDF file. The document shows a Signed badge and a "Fully executed" date, with every party's signature and initials displayed inline exactly where they signed.

From this view you have three actions in the header:

• Save as Template — reuse the document's structure for future clients
• Signed PDF — download the fully executed PDF
• Audit Log — download the audit record for the signature (see below)

The Audit Log

Every signature is backed by an audit record you can download on demand with the Audit Log button. It's a PDF documenting who signed, when (with timestamps), from what IP address, and a content fingerprint of the document that was signed — the paper trail you'd want if a signed agreement were ever questioned.

Signed Document Access

Both you and your client have ongoing access to the signed document:

• Your client can revisit their original link to view the signed document and download it
• You can view the executed document and download the Signed PDF and Audit Log from the document on your event page

Security and Legal Validity

Signing in Gilded is designed to satisfy the ESIGN Act and UETA: the signer consents to sign electronically before they begin, must scroll through the full document, and every step is recorded in the audit log described above.

Next Steps

After a contract is signed, you are ready to collect payment. Learn about Setting Up Payments to start accepting payments from your clients.